I Have Known Mountains on iTunes

My gear

For gear nerds. Here's my gear page. Any modern
musician is a gear freak, to one degree or another. I have guitars and
amps, and studio gear. I like to find it and keep it. If it works well,
I'm done searching. I have to spend my time making music, on guitar, not
tweaking knobs and forever looking for that holy grail of tone. I think
the holy grail is in the fingers anyway, not in a piece of gear. I mean that’s
very true up to a point. That said you have to find the best gear possible
to express yourself as best you can!

So I will separate the list into a few different
categories. For a more detailed list of gear for the studio specifically click this link.

For my studios, the heart of them, is Metric Halos
ULN-8. They can replace most mic pres
and functionality of multiple other boxes. Just
running signal through them brings high end to the music. ULN-8 is very high
end and cutting edge.

The Millenna HV-3D and TD-1 the best of the best, if
you like transparency, which I do. I like to hear the instrument or the voice,
not the box.

Fractal Audio Systems introduced the Axe Fx II in
2011. I can’t say enough about it. Both live and in the studio, it affords me
great flexibility.

I use the Liquid Foot LF+12+ foot controller. I augment this with 4 pedals: two Boss FV-500Ls a Mission SP-1 and an old Ernie Ball Volume pedal I’m using as an expression pedal for volume. For simple jazz gigs, rehearsals or distance touring gigs I use the Fractal AX8 and the XiTone 1-12 cabs.

My DAW of choice is Digital Performer. But I also have and use Pro Tools, Logic Audio when I have to.

In terms of amps I still have my Deluxe
Reverb (the actual 1965 model). It was suped up by Wade Stewart of Stewart
Electronics. My beloved Seymour Duncan Convertible is never far from me. I love this thing. It has great tone and
variability. But I like to leave it installed in the studio. Truthfully I haven’t plugged my guitars into
any of those amps since I got the Axe Fx II.

With my guitars I have two main instruments, but since
I do a lot of studio work I need the proper colors of instruments to give me
what I need.

My primary jazz guitar is a Gibson ES-355. It’s not
your typical or traditional jazz guitar, but when have I ever been traditional?

My favorite rockin’ fusion-ish guitar is my seafoam green Strat
Plus. It has the Eric Clapton circuitry. It was given to me by Fender when I had an
endorsement deal with them. I was told that there was a name for this model,
but at the time it was one of two prototypes anywhere in the world. I have to
thank the incomparable Steve Voudouris for that guitar. Where ever you are Steve thank you and I love
you!

.

One of my very best guitars is my Les Paul 25/50 Anniversary. It's an incredible instrument. I don't play it that much though. But when I do it's the absolute best tool for the job. It really sings. But it's probably the heaviest Les Paul Gibson ever made.

There's a 1967 Epiphone Broadway there. That's the white fat bodied guitar pictured with my collection. Funny story about that. I used to play that as my main guitar in The Runners and even Sparrow. One day, in the early 80s, coming back from the movie theater where we watched "Being There," with Peter Sellers, the apartment had been broken in to. All 7 of my guitars were stolen, as well as my stereo. It was a great stereo I had brought back with me from Germany. ALL of my music was gone. This was a terrible time. The Broadway was one of them.

Over the next week I kept getting phone calls of sightings. That's a very hard guitar to not know. It just stands out, and no one else played anything that looked like it in the area. Larry Gosch at the Vox Room called me and said some guy came in to the store with my guitar. Larry said, "Hey, that's Henry's guitar!" He didn't even know it had been stolen. Jazz guitarist Steve Homan called me and said his downstairs neighbor wanted to show him his new guitar and Steve told him, "Hey, that's Henry's guitar!" So I eventually got a phone call from the guy. I had to buy it back. He wasn't the thief. He bought it from a couple of junkies who were eventually caught. But nothing else was retrieved. I bought it back for $300, gladly.

Tommie Shorter, this up to now, little known guitar
luthier, has made me some remarkable guitars. The first I call Tuesday,
because that was the first thing I did with it. He loaned it to me and I played
this song I was writing. You can hear the results on my soundcloud page - Maybe Tuesday.

The next, the gold guitar above, I had
him re-work on old Strat neck I had. I
just had the neck and he built the guitar around it. In truth I just wanted a kick around guitar I
could leave at the studio or any place and not worry too much. I still need a kick around guitar because
Tommie made this one too well.

And the
last guitar Tommie built for me, above, was made to order. This is a wonderful Telecaster style
guitar. I love it.

I have two Taylor acoustics: 414CE and an Anniversary
Dreadnought.

This is another interesting story, before I bore everyone to tears. I bought my first Taylor from a friend, who bought it from a friend who worked for Taylor guitars. It was a special deal for employees only. They saved the choicest cuts of woods to make their anniversary model. So cut to a couple of years later, I was working with a guy for a couple of weeks, out of town. Not musical stuff. Over the course of some time our conversation led us to guitars, casually, and then we'd leave it and let the conversation go somewhere else again. Finally at some point he says, "I own a guitar company. We make acoustic guitars. I own half of it actually." I stopped in my tracks. Weirder things have happened but not too often. I asked, "Do you know Michael ---?" He said he did. "Do you own TAYLOR guitars??" LOL. I don't know how this stuff happens to me sometimes. I told him the story and we cracked up. How small the world appears at times. Like magic.

I have another Stratocaster assembled by Valley Arts
and Mike McGuire. It’s my synth
guitar. I put on Roland GK-2 pickups and
use it with the Axon AX-50 when I write music in the studio.

Gear

I just got to replace my Axe Fx II XL+. Call me crazy. This box has really helped me get the tones I need live and in the studio. For now this is racked in my studio. I love it. Sue me. No tubes, but it doesn’t sound like no tubes.

Fractal AX8! This is kind of a floor version of the Axe Fx II. I run it with two XiTone active 1-12 wedges. These, two guitars and a few cables is all I’ll need to play live on the road. Throw the AX8 in a carry on, put one or two of the Xitone wedges on the plane with Slipcover.

I use the remarkable Metric Halo ULN-8 interface. I have 4 of them! I split them up between two studios, or recording a band live with my remote rig. I also have a Metric Halo ULN-2 to augment the set. The pres in these boxes are amazing, as is the conversion. I find I need far less hardware. So I've been getting rid of the excess. But I cannot do without:

The Millennia TD-1 swiss army knife DI. The most high end DI on the planet. It also has the HV-3 micpre, tube or solid state at the flip of a switch, great 2 band EQ, reamp technology and great routing options.

MIssion central control for this modern jazz guitarist. I just got a pedal board. I shunned these for many years.

And this is the newest addition to the family - the FAMC LF+12+ midi foot controller. Next to it on the left, is a Mission SP-1 , on the right of the LF+12+ are two Boss FV-500L Expression pedals. This is to control all of the wonderful parameters of the Fractal Axe Fx II. It has no effects in it itself. Right now I'm only using three pedals. I have a fourth one I couldn't fit on the board, and for me right now, it's overkill. The little foot switch is for tapping out tempos for the delays. Look, hands free Mom!

34 tracks of goodness! I don't know when I'll need to record that many tracks all at once, but if I do I'm ready. Here is my studio rack of ULN-8s, and Millennia. I'm a happy man.

Here are my guitars! My bevy of beauties!

OK, I'm told by my wonderful assistant that it's completely unprofessional for me to show my dogs in the background. There's one dog missing. Maybe that's the problem. Here is my main axe, the '78 Gibson ES-355.